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Nee En Mizhikalil starts off very well, albeit carrying a hangover of songs shot in similar settings. A sedate melody soulfully rendered by Vijay Yesudas, Nidhin Lal and Divya Ramani, and composer Navaneeth Sundar presenting a smart mix of elements in his understated arrangement – a bit of sax here, a bit of sarod there.. I think I detected shades of natabhairavi raga (saaramathi apparently, as confirmed by the composer). It is only in the last one minute that the composer decides to spice up the song a bit and ends up with a remix-y sound that didn’t quite work for me. Ukulele Ukulele once again features a lovely arrangement, the violin in the interludes being the highlight (surprisingly no discernible use of ukulele; expected at least a solo going by the title). And in Srinivas and Aalaap Raju, the composer gets the singers right too. But where it goes horribly wrong is in the cringe-worthy lyrics! But for the flute phrases, Who’s Gonna Be My Buddy merely apes the boy band sound and is as tedious as the genre itself has grown. Benny Dayal and Sricharan take care of the vocals here. The debutant singer Divya Ramani gets one more song in the soundtrack, the best of the lot in fact. Mostly based on kaapi raga, a raga that has yielded so many beautiful melodies in the past, Kadalil Kanmashi Pole is another nice hummable piece to add to that list, albeit with a derivative arrangement. Lovely debut by Divya, hope to hear more of her. And this one has Anoop Menon chipping in as lyricist too.

After that superb adaptation of Chandra Choodha for Karmayogi, Navaneeth Sundar makes a commendable solo debut in Buddy.